In recent years, printing techniques such as screen printing and offset printing have been adopted to print electronic circuits. These printing processes having been suitable for forming patterns of relatively wide (200 .mu.m or more) printing elements (lines). However they have not been suited to the formation of fine patterns of printing areas of less width. Moreover, these prior techniques have been accompanied by problems such as deformation of printed patterns due to causes such as the effect of the fluidity of the ink and the pressure of the printing plate and remnant ink on the printing plate and not being transferred onto the object being printed. As a consequence, the reproducibility of the printed pattern has been poor. For example, by the screen printing process, printing is carried out by forming on a mesh-form screen an ink-shielding mask so that the non-masked parts of this mask form a desired pattern and causing ink to pass through the non-masked parts and adhere to the object being printed (hereinafter referred to as print object). Using the width of printing elements (lines) for practical use is limited to about 60 .mu.m.
Consequently, using these prior art printing methods, it has been difficult to form fine patterns less than 60 microns. Moreover, reproducibility of the printed pattern has been inadequate using these techniques. Accordingly, in order to form fine electronic patterns (e.g. electrodes for plasma display panels), it has been necessary to resort to photolithography. Formation of very fine patterns is possible by photolithography. In comparison with printing processes, however, photolithographic processes involve complicated process steps, low productivity, and high cost.
One application where extremely fine printed patterns are required is in electrode and electronic circuit patterns such as is employed in electronic information displays, (e.g. electrodes for plasma displays) as well as hybrid optoelectro components. Such electronic patterns, which are on the order of less than 60 microns in width, are typically formed via photolithographic techniques. It would be desirable to develop alternative techniques for forming fine accurate printed patterns onto substrates.